


When You're Here, Then You're Home

by niseag



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Fluff, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25259161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niseag/pseuds/niseag
Summary: A collection of drabbles ranging from fluff to angst to smut and everything in between.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ann Perkins, Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 19
Kudos: 45





	1. Echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leslie's love is like an echo.

“Fly safe,” he says, as she has her hand on the doorknob. She’s going to Washington for the rest of the week. Something to do with the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but she’d been talking too quickly for Ben to properly process it all. “Text me when you land?”

“Of course. I’ll miss you so much.”

“Miss you already,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you too, babe,” Leslie says, smiling back at him as she closes the door.

***

“Don’t stay up too late.”

Ben’s standing on the bottom stair in his pyjamas, hand on the railing. She’s sitting cross-legged on the couch with her glasses on, laptop sitting on one knee. She looks up and smiles. “I won’t,” she says, and they both know she’s lying.

“Sure, honey,” Ben smiles. “See you when you come to bed.”

“Night.”

“Night. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

***

“Hey there,” he says, glancing at the clock despite himself. It’s past ten.

“I’m _so_ sorry, honey,” she says, looking from Ben to the cold paella, the unopened bottle of red wine and the glasses sitting stems-up on the table. “I couldn’t get away.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” It’s not, really. “We can just go to bed and watch a movie if you want. Ken Burns, maybe some Indy?”

“Yes,” she says, looking relieved. “I’d love that.” But then she pauses, looks around like she’s lost something. “Wait—”

“The kids are in bed.” Leslie purses her lips and blinks hard. “It’s late,” he adds.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We’ll talk about it later. Come to bed.”

“Okay.”

“Hey,” he says, putting an arm around her shoulder, “I’m glad you’re home. I love you.”

She leans into him. “Love you too.”

***

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asks, looking at her untouched pancakes.

“Hm?” Leslie looks up, one hand lingering over a line of newsprint and the other clutching her phone, the screen blinding on full brightness before six in the morning. “Oh, I am, yeah. This is just blowing up really badly right now.”

“Hey, if you need to go to the office…”

She smiles and her shoulder sag in relief. “I really, really do.”

“It’s okay. Go. I’ll take the kids.”

She stands up and grabs her purse from the floor next to her and slings it over her shoulder. She already has her heels on. “Thanks so much. Really.”

Ben nods. “Drive safe,” he says, as she heads for the door.

“I will.”

“Love you.”

“You too.”

***

“Have fun. Say hi to Ann for me.”

Leslie looks back at him, adjusting her grip on all the boxes tucked under her arm. They’re wrapped in an assortment of bright patterned paper, each one decorated with a different combination of glittery stickers and ribbons. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“I can’t. Ice skating this afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Have a good time, though. Tell me all about it at dinner?”

Leslie smiles. “I will.” The boxes slip from her fingers and she jostles them back into place. “Okay, well, I gotta get these in the car.” She fishes her keys from her pocket and hooks them around her finger. “See you later!”

“See you later,” he says. “Drive safe.”

For once, Ben holds back. Doesn't say it—just to see.

He holds his breath.

Waits.

Watches as she pulls the door open.

“I will!” she says.

She steps outside, pulls the door closed. A moment later he hears the car door slam and the engine start, hears it roll into life and out of the driveway.

He’s still waiting.


	2. Allergies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben catches Leslie in a lie the morning after their first kiss.

How is he so good at this?

God, if she’d known he was going to be so good at this, she would definitely have jumped his bones sooner.

Like, immediately.

Because fuck, this is like fireworks. Like magic. A miracle.

Leslie clutches at Ben, pressing into the lean muscle of his back, curling her leg over his hip, pulling herself closer to him. She lets her face fall against the crook of his neck as his fingers brush against her in slow, deliberate strokes from her entrance up to her clit.

“Is this good?” he murmurs softly, lips brushing against her face. She moans softly into him and moves her leg again, opening herself to him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, nodding against his skin. “Definitely.”

“Good,” he says. She can feel his voice rumbling through his throat and his chest against her face. He’s large and warm and solid beside her and although she’s gone her entire life resenting being so short, she finds she likes the feeling of being so small next to him.

Ben changes pace and Leslie tightens her fingers against him, shuddering and pushing herself closer still as he brushes her clit with his thumb before running them back down to slip inside her at the end, his fingers catching that brand new spot they found last night as he comes back to the upward stroke. She holds in a whimper, bucking against him, silently begging for more. 

He moves inside her easily and she didn’t think it was possible to be this wet. It might be a little embarrassing, actually, now she thinks about it—but she tries _not_ to think about it, or anything except the feeling of this, of Ben all over her, building something deep and raw inside her body, just for her.

“Ben,” she gasps, short of breath. “Ben.”

“This still okay?”

 _“Yes,”_ she moans. “God, yes, god.” He lingers on her clit before swiping down on it a little harder than before and she lets out a deep sigh against his neck, feeling the heat of her own breath on her face. She clings to him, thrusts against him. _“Ben,”_ she says again. “Can you… _hngh_ —can you do that— _mmmph_ … that thing?” she gasps. “From last night?”

“Which thing?”

_“You know.”_

“There were a few…” he says, nudging her forehead with his. She looks up to see a teasing look in his eyes. She nudges his forehead back, biting her lip and trying her best not to look as desperate as she feels as she angles herself against him, inviting him deeper inside her.

 _“This,”_ she whines. “Can you— _nnngh_ —you know…”

He kisses her as he twists his fingers, changes rhythm, hits her clit a little differently. Leslie groans deep in the back of her throat, clutching at him and breathing hard against his mouth.

He pulls back just long enough to ask, “This?”

 _“Yeah.”_ That’s it. She cries out loudly, totally unbridled and totally grounded both at once, like every nerve in her body is one and every part of her is about to explode.

Ben kisses her as he works his fingers deeper within her, finding something molten and untapped that Leslie has never known before.

She breaks around him in hoarse gasps and shudders and white knuckles, and when she comes down from the edge she lies on her back staring up at the ceiling like she’s looking into the heavens.

Ben settles down beside her, looking into her eyes and brushing her hair from her face and smiling… well, not smugly, she thinks, but certainly with some real satisfaction.

“Good?”

 _“Yeah,”_ she sighs. “Wow. You’re, um, _really_ good at that.”

Ben pulls her close to him, lazily brushing her ribs and the dip of her waist, and this time he gives her what really _is_ a smug smile.

“So I guess you’re not _really_ allergic to fingers, then.”


	3. Bailey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leslie hates her old neighbour's cat. That cat is trying to kill her. Or at least humiliate her. And oh, god, that can't be Ben under the tree, can it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Bailey" (from Meg @amegdala) and a kitten getting stuck in a tree (from Mandy @evansdotmandy).

“Bailey!” Leslie cries, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks up into the tree. “Bailey! Come down!”

This isn’t even her kitten, technically. She’d just sort of attached herself to Leslie after old Dot died last month and Leslie hasn’t had the heart to take her to the animal shelter.

“Bailey, come down. Come down, Bailey. Please? Please come down. Come down. Bailey, pleeeease come down.” 

The tabby looks at her as if she’s considering it ( _which she isn’t, because she’s a cat, Leslie reminds herself_ ). Leslie holds her breath. After a moment, Bailey trills and jumps up into a higher branch, then leaps up again. 

“Crap on a camera,” Leslie whines. “Fine. If that’s how we’re playing it, I’ll just...” She takes off her heels— _great, now she’s going to just be on time for work_ —and puts her hands on the lower branches, hauling herself up and into the tree.

If Leslie doesn’t exactly remember how to clamber up a tree, at least her muscles seem to have some memory of it. She moves clumsily from branch to branch, easing towards this evil kitten.

As she nears the top of the tree she looks down and her head spins a little as she must be some ten feet off the ground at least. Well, she’ll worry about getting down after she gets the cat. She’s just out of reach. One more branch and she’ll have her. Leslie hooks her hands around knotty wood and pulls herself up until she’s almost face to face with the little grey bastard, looking into her limpid yellow eyes triumphantly.

Bailey looks back for a long unblinking moment and just as Leslie extends a tired arm towards her, Bailey drops down over her front paws, wriggles and jumps. 

“Motherfucker!”

Leslie watches helplessly as the kitten skips down from branch to branch, lands gracefully on the grass below and trots back up the path to Leslie’s house, towards the food Leslie had left out in the first place trying to lure her back. 

“Crap.” Leslie clings to the tree trunk, looking around. She’s surrounded by leaves and flimsy boughs. She looks down to find one firm enough to take her weight, but without the cat to distract her the view of the grass below is dizzying. Her stomach churns, her vision goes a little fuzzy around the edges. “Crap, crap.”

She adjusts her footing, bark coarse against the soles of her bare feet. She licks her lips nervously. There must be some way down. She got up, after all. What goes up must come down. She just needs to look. She chances another glance downwards and her heart begins to race, sweat building on her palms. “Fuck. Crap.”

Goddamnit. She’s thirty-six years old and she’s stuck in a tree. She’s stuck in a tree. She’s stuck in a motherfucking tree. 

Leslie squeezes her eyes closed, fingers of one hand turning white against the tree trunk as she fumbles in her pocket for her phone. Blindly, she pulls it out and brailles for the speed dial.

“Ann?” she says, voice high and shaky. “Ann? Ann, are you there? It’s Leslie, Leslie Knope from the Parks Department. I’m stuck in a tree, Ann! Ann, I’m stuck in a tree. You need to help me, Ann. Ann, please! Help me!”

***

Leslie doesn’t look down at Ann. She hugs the tree with all her might, eyes shut so tight she’s seeing starbursts. 

“There’s no way I can get you down, Les,” Ann shouts, sounding a little exasperated. “I’ll call around and find a ladder.”

***

Leslie hears a car roll up and park, and then there’s the distant and unintelligible chatter of Ann and talking to someone. She’s not looking down to see who it is. She wishes she could die. Or become one with this tree and transcend mortal life. This is just too humiliating.

They might be shouting something at her, but the circus music in her head and the pounding in her chest and her sharp, shallow breaths drown it all out. Then there’s a huge jolt and the whole tree shakes. Leslie jumps, squeaks and almost falls as a giant ladder crashes against the trunk just a foot below where she’s locked onto it with a vice grip. 

She cracks an eye open just enough to see someone climbing up it towards her from what seems like a thousand yards away. Leslie whimpers. She wishes she had even a scrap of composure, but the horse has been out of the barn on that one for some time now. If she gets out of this tree without actually crying she’s going to chalk it up as a win and pretend none of this ever happened. She’s definitely taking Bailey to the animal shelter after this. No question. Leslie and cats are through.

The clanging of footsteps on metal rungs draws closer and louder and finally stops. Wincing, Leslie turns her head and looks to see who’s rescuing her—that is, to see who she’ll have to specifically avoid on every street corner after this for the rest of her life.

And—crap. Warm brown eyes, thick brown hair. Ben. Of all the people in the world.

“Hi,” she squeaks.

“Hey,” he says, concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”

Leslie shakes her head violently. “Please—” she tries, but her chest is too tight and she chokes on the word. She clears her throat and presses her forehead to the tree, avoiding his gaze. “ _Please_ just get me down?”

“You’re okay,” he says. “One sec.” He steps off the ladder and onto a branch next to it, wobbling a little as he holds himself in place with one arm that must be a lot stronger than it looks. He rests a hand on her shoulder and she hopes he can’t feel how much she’s shaking. “Here, let me help you.”

She looks up and bites her lip, nodding. When she looks at his face the world stops spinning. He holds her gaze steady with his warm brownie eyes, rubs her shoulder with gentle fingers while she breathes, trying to steady herself enough to move. 

A quiet, reassuring moment passes between them and finally Leslie nods again, once, more firmly. Ben moves his hand from her shoulder down to her waist, steadying her as she steps from her branch to one near his. His hand is warm. Her heart’s still pounding.

“Is this oka—”

“Yes!” Leslie nods before he can finish. “Please, just…”

“Yup,” he says, a little too quickly. “Uh huh. Got it. Getting you out of the tree now.” 

Leslie just nods again, over and over, heart racing as he guides her by the waist from branch to branch until she reaches the top of the ladder. Reassured a little by Ben’s hold on her, Leslie finally looks down and sees Andy holding it steady alongside Ann. She only feels halfway to throwing up and she’s going to count it as a victory.

She shakes as he helps her down onto the rungs, steadying her by the shoulders and then by the arms and finally holding her clammy hands ( _oh, god, Ben’s touching her sweaty disgusting hands and she’s never going to live this down_ ) as she climbs down, relishing the feel of the cold metal on the soles of her feet.

Ben waits until she’s firmly on the ground before he climbs down, jumping the last couple of steps to land in the dewy grass beside her.

“Are you okay?” he asks, taking her by the arms again and looking down at her like he really does care if she is or not.

She’s still trembling, but the adrenaline is starting to wear off. She sags against him, falling into his chest and although this is probably against that stupid goddamn rule she doesn’t really care. She nearly died! Well, she could have fallen and broken something. A leg, or a clavicle. It was nearly very bad. She thinks she probably gets to lean against the guy who saved her from dying or a lifetime as a quadriplegic for five seconds. It seems reasonable to Leslie. Ben seems to think so too, because his arms go back to her waist and he holds her for a moment while she recomposes herself.

After a moment she pulls back and nods, remember he’d asked her a question. “Yeah,” she says, meeting his eyes. Her heart still hasn’t stopped racing. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Good,” he says. There is cool air between them, but his hands are still on her waist. His eyes flick down for a second, then back up hers and he licks his lips.

She almost forgets where they are. That it’s seven in the morning on a work day and she’s on her sidewalk and this is her boss and she’s expressly forbidden to… well, whatever this is, she knows she’s not allowed to do it. And Ben might have conveniently forgotten too, because his fingers are moving in tiny circles over her shirt and he’s definitely—like _definitely_ —looking at her lips now.

She almost forgets.

And then—

“Holy shit!” Andy says. “What is that? Is that a rat? Dude, that’s—”

 _“No,_ Andy, that’s Leslie’s asshole cat.” 

Leslie jerks backwards and looks around and there’s Ann giving Andy that _I can’t believe we lived together_ look and Andy’s got a shit-eating grin on his face, staring at Bailey rolling belly-up in the garden.

Ann shifts her gaze from Andy to Leslie and gives her a long, hard stare that says they are going to have a serious conversation later about whatever just didn’t happen with Ben.

“She’s not my cat!” Leslie snaps, deflecting. “She’s the reason I got stuck! I’m taking her to the animal shelter so she can go ruin someone else’s life.”

“Aw,” Ben says. She looks over at him and he’s crouched on the ground, smiling at Bailey with one arm extended towards her, fingers curled. “Really? She’s kind of cute.”

As if to prove his point, Bailey trots over and sniffs his fingers, then falls over and rolls again at his feet, flopping back and forth as Ben scratches her chin.

Leslie blinks.

That _is_ kind of cute.

Huh.

Fine.

Maybe she’ll keep her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Meg's cat Bailey.


	4. Disgrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben thinks there's something wrong with him. He's four years old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very bleak take on Ben's relationship with his father - contains themes of emotional abuse.

He shouldn’t be listening.

Ben doesn’t really understand, but his heart is pounding and he’s shaking and everything just feels _wrong_. He should be in bed, but he sits on the floor surrounded by toys and duplo blocks and paperback books graded for children in elementary school and he fiddles with a model train.

“He can’t keep a damn thing clean, Julia.” The voice is distant, down the hall. His door is closed but the walls are thin. Perhaps they think he’s asleep. Perhaps they just don’t care. “It’s always a pigsty.” 

“He’s only four.”

“He’s damn lazy is what he is.”

***

He gets good grades at school but it’s not because he’s trying. Every time he has to work on his project about whales he runs to the bathroom and spends most of the afternoon there. He’s too scared of doing it wrong to try at all.

***

There’s something wrong with him.

None of the other kids like him.

He’s had a couple of friends, one at a time, but they never seem to last. They all end up crowding to the more popular kids in the end, standing under a tree and laughing in circles, in secret clubs he’ll never know the passwords to.

Ben wonders what it is about him that is so wrong and so broken.

It must be bad. It must be so bad that you’re not allowed to talk about it.

No one will tell him what it is he’s done wrong.

***

He gets back from dungeons and dragons after dinner, hitches his bike outside.

When he turns to the window he sees the hunched silhouette, eerily still, and even though he was allowed to go, even though he’d triple checked, it quickly becomes clear that finer details like permission aren’t going to matter tonight. Not in this mood.

“You’re never here for dinner,” Stephen says. "Who do you think does the chores? Your mother?” He laughs in Ben’s face, but it’s more of a strangled hiss. Mirthless. “Don’t you think about anyone but yourself?”

***

He brings home a B in biology at the end of the term and Stephen shakes his head. Resigned, almost amused by his own disappointment. “I thought the competition from that King girl would encourage you,” he says. “Well. Guess not.”

***

He’s the most boring teenager he knows and he’s really totally okay with that. He’s not interested in alcohol or drugs or parties or dating. He doesn’t have friends anymore, but he only really misses that sometimes.

Ben doesn’t ask for much any more.

Give him comic books and Star Wars and a stack of fantasy novels with lore more complex than the biblical canon and he’s happy.

It isn’t lost on him that these are all things he can do alone.

Maybe he likes to get a little lost, these days.

***

He doesn’t do his homework, still mostly brings home As.

Still puts off essays until the last possible moment. Still doesn’t know how to apply himself or how to keep his room clean.

Still lives with that inexplicable cloud of fear.

***

“The three of you are the most ungrateful children I’ve ever come across in my life. And you—” Stephen rounds on Ben, snarling “—you are the worst of the lot.”

He still has no idea what he's supposed to have done.

***

For his sixteenth birthday he gets a weekend job at the Sunglass Hut that Stephen manages, two towns over, and the shittiest car imaginable.

“To teach you some damn responsibility.”

***

“That’s it,” Stephen says, throwing the cupboard door open and hulking a suitcase down from the top shelf. “I’m done. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of all of you. You are the laziest, most entitled, most _selfish_ kids I’ve ever had the misfortune of—”

_“Stephen, for god’s sake—”_

He turns away, storms down the hall and Ben can hear the banging of drawers and wardrobe doors and muffled swearing as he stands there, looking from his mother to Steph, silently crying, and feels totally numb except for the half formed thought that he wishes Stephen really would fucking go this time.

But he doesn’t.

He never does.

***

He lets it all run away with him in senior year. Lets something raw and feral out of the bag and he can’t seem to squash it back inside again.

Well fuck it.

Let them all see what he’s made of.

***

Ben doesn’t know what the fuck he was trying to prove, but the sheer, unmasked disgust on that man’s face is worse than any of the fallout.

Worse than the media, worse than the panel of his his peers, sixty and grey, passing judgement on him like the stupid, incompetent child that he is. Worse than the eggs and the shame and not having felt the sun on his skin in weeks.

He takes it in.

The granite sneer.

The self-righteous curl of his lip and the meanness in his eyes like Ben is nothing, worse than dog shit on his shoe, worse than never having had a son.

He thinks perhaps his father was right about him all along.

***

“I want you out of my house,” he says, knowing full well that Ben has nowhere to go. “I don’t want you living under my roof.” He takes a step towards Ben, and another, until he’s looking up at him, presence filling the whole room in spite of his hunched frame. There is the twitch in his cheek, the bare hatred in his eyes. There is spit on his lips that sprays, lands on Ben’s face—on Ben’s own mouth—as his father says, _“You’re a disgrace.”_

***

It is months before he can leave. It wasn’t his first choice or even in his top ten, but for what it symbolises, what it offers, Carleton College may as well be the promised land.

It is golden gates and trumpet song and absolution, a place where he can start fresh and forget and run until his legs give out.

***

The first thing Ben tears down is himself.

Strips everything back, all the things he hates and all the things he’s failed at until he’s a blank canvas. It doesn’t need a lot of colour. It just needs to be functional.

***

He learns to apply himself.

Starts his essays when he gets them, does all his coursework and asks for extra credit assignments.

Gets As he has earned and not pulled out of his ass.

Keeps his house so fucking clean he can see his face in the hardwood flooring.

***

Ben stops caring what people think of him. Or cuts himself off from the caring.

Same thing.

***

He takes a job with the Indiana state budget office. Calls it repentance when it’s self-flagellation.

Tears down towns, builds something colourless and functional where once there was ruin. “Okay,” the towns say, one after the other. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t notice the complacency settling over him like the first snow of winter.

And he doesn’t stop running for a long, long time.

He’s not sure what he’s looking for, exactly.

But he’ll know it when he finds it.


End file.
